1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to power plants of the kind using solar energy. The invention also relates to stoves and furnaces of the kind energized by solar rays as well as cosmic rays, and gamma rays. Finally, the invention relates to electrical generator structure wherein heat is used to produce pressurized gas or other power generating means.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Solar collectors are known in many forms, with a typical collector having a transparent cover sheet for insulating purposes, a collector plate that is dark in color to receive the ultraviolet rays of the sun and convert them to infrared rays, and a water or air circulation system flowing either over or behind the collector plate to remove the collected heat and carry it to a storage area, where rocks are the most common heat storage medium.
Collectors of the type described are often mounted on the roof or walls of the building to be heated, or alternatively, the collectors may be placed over a large area of ground on fixed frames angling the planar faces of the collector plates approximately toward the sun. The disadvantages of this type of collector are that the heat collecting efficiency is relatively low because the collector is immobile and cannot easily be aimed directly at the sun to operate at maximum efficiency during all sunlight hours and at all seasons of the year. It is desirable for the sun's rays to strike the collector plate perpendicularly, but this occurs for only a short time each day and for only a few weeks of the year. At all other times, the collector operates at reduced efficiency.
Attempts to increase the efficiency of collectors has led to the development of aiming collectors, which track the sun across the sky while maintaining a perpendicular orientation to the solar rays. These collectors have faced certain limitations in the efficiency of their aiming devices, especially when the sun is obscured by clouds. Aiming devices may employ a balanced circuit between two electric eyes that seek equal exposure to the light. One such circuit adjusts the vertical attitude of the collector, while a second such circuit adjusts the horizontal attitude, although other combinations of axes are known. When the horizontal and vertical aiming devices are seeking the position of the sun, they may at times work against each other in that changes in the horizontal position will disrupt the aim of the vertical circuit, and vice versa. For this reason, aiming collectors may lose efficiency.
A number of systems have been proposed to generate electricity from solar heat, which warms a gas that powers a turbine. Because solar heat is available for a limited period of time each day, the efficiency of a solar-electrical generator is critical to the practicality of the system.
The present invention provides a solar collector and aiming device that is highly efficient and adaptable to use in an electrical generating system.